HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING
MEDFORD CROSS COUNTRY
Raider girls start with 2 dominant meet wins
With eight runners among the top 19 finishers Tuesday, the Medford girls had no trouble claiming the program’s fifth straight championship at the Mosinee Invitational and their second team title in as many meets to start the 2022 season.
Held at Marathon County’s Nine Mile Recreation Area just outside of Wausau, the much flatter course allows opportunities for significant time improvements following Thursday’s first meet at one of the state’s most challenging courses at Timm’s Hill.
All of Medford’s girls and the boys, who finished third at the 11-team meet, did just that, knocking off more than two minutes in several cases.
The girls totaled 46 points to beat their closest challengers Stratford (82), Great Northern Conference rival Lakeland (92), Wautoma (106) and Rhinelander (131), another GNC foe. GNC squads Mosinee (146) and Northland Pines (187) were sandwiched around Edgar (178) in sixth and eighth place. Adams-Friendship (225) was ninth and Antigo and Spencer did not field scoring squads.
Meredith Richter, fresh off her win at Timm’s Hill, was no match for Northland Pines’ outstanding junior Nora Gremban, who won in 18:37.9, but Richter was well ahead of everyone else in the 97-runner field, finishing in 19:37.8, more than a minute better than she finished in this race in 2021. She was 1:11.4 ahead of third-place finisher Britt Fitzgerald of Mosinee.
Junior Ella Daniels impressed for a second straight race, coming in as Medford’s number-two runner at 21:53.4, while freshman Lindsay Kahn was ninth at 22:06.5. Ella Dassow was 11th at 22:17 and exchange student Bjorg Risa was the fifth scorer at 22:31.8, good for 16th place.
Risa led a run of four straight Raiders crossing the finish line, demonstrating the jockeying that is expected to happen within the team later in the season for top-seven varsity spots. Freshman Morgan Liske made a jump in this meet, taking the team’s sixth spot and finishing 17th in 22:33.3, just ahead of classmate and teammate Mallory Richter (22:33.5). Senior Brooke Rudolph was 19th at 22:33.7.
Riley Clark led the remaining five Raiders with a 35th-place time of 24:59.7, Esmeralda Anderson was 40th in 25:24.8, Lillie Gleichauf was 43rd in 26:05.9, Natasha Butt placed 57th in 27:24 and Kylie Potvin was 62nd at 27:57.2.
The largest drops in time from Timm’s Hill to Tuesday were recorded by Butt (4:41), Liske (3:16), Anderson (2:22) and Potvin (2:02).
The boys actually tied Stratford for second with 63 points, but the Tigers handily won the sixth-runner tiebreaker with Derek Wiese taking 25th place. While Stratford packed four runners between the 17th and 26th spots and had the fifth- and 11th-place runners, the Raiders put four in the top 15 to challenge for second place.
Tanner Hraby led the way by finishing second out of 66 runners in 17:28.5. Lakeland’s Owen Clark pulled away from the pack and won in 17:06.6. Senior Josh Clark cracked the top 10 by placing ninth in 18:28.7, while juniors Logan Gubser (19:06.9) and Nick Steliga (19:14.5) were 13th and 15th. Senior Lucas Borman was the fifth scorer at 21:49.5. Freshman Evan Pagel was the sixth man, taking 42nd at 23:21.7. Cullen Jones (24:30.2) and Ervin Ulrich (24:30.6) were 49th and 50th in their second high school races.
Ulrich (3:12), Pagel (2:52), Borman (2:11) and Jones (2:06) had the biggest time drops from Timm’s Hill on the flatter Nine Mile course.
Ashton Bremer of Lakeland (18:00), Cody Ruetz of Rhinelander (18:04.3) and Cree DeFoe of Stratford (18:11.6) rounded out the top five.
The Raiders got an idea of who they’ll be chasing for a Great Northern Conference title as Lakeland won the team title with 47 points. Rhinelander was fourth with 76 points, followed by Northland Pines (99), Edgar (157), Mosinee (184) and the incomplete teams from Adams-Friendship, Antigo, Spencer and Wautoma.
Medford will next compete at the Marshfield Invitational at Wildwood Park Tuesday afternoon. The first race of the day is set for 4 p.m.
